e Clipping Tree, a name which yet it bears' (foot-note on 1.
169).

Clipping is the word used in the North of England for shearing.

78. *_The Widow on Windermere Side_. [XXXIV.]

The facts recorded in this Poem were given me and the character of the
person described by my highly esteemed friend the Rev. R.P. Graves, who
has long officiated as Curate at Bowness, to the great benefit of the
parish and neighbourhood. The individual was well known to him. She died
before these Verses were composed. It is scarcely worth while to notice
that the stanzas are written in the sonnet-form; which was adopted when
I thought the matter might be included in 28 lines.

79. _The Armenian Lady's Love_. [XXXIV.]

The subject of the following poem is from the 'Orlandus' of the author's
friend, Kenelm Henry Digby: and the liberty is taken of inscribing it to
him as an acknowledgment, however unworthy, of pleasure and instruction
derived from his numerous and valuable writings, illustrative of the
piety and chivalry of the olden time. *Rydal Mount, 1830.

80. _Percy's 'Reliques'_ (foot-note on 1. 2).

'You have heard "a Spanish Lady
How she wooed an English man."'

See in Percy's _Reliques_ that fine old ballad, 'The Spanish Lady's
Love'; from which Poem the form of stanza, as suitable to dialogue, is
adopted.

81. *_Loving and Liking_. [XXXV.]

By my Sister. Rydal Mount, 1832. It arose, I believe, out of a casual
expression of one of Mr. Swinburne's children.

82. *_Farewell Lines_. [XXXVI.]

These Lines were designed as a farewell to Charles Lamb and his Sister,
who had retired from the throngs of London to comparative solitude in
the village of Enfield, Herts, [_sic._]

83. (1) _The Redbreast_.

Lines 45-6.

'Of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and John
Blessing the bed she lies upon.'

The words--

'Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and John,
Bless the bed that I lie on,'

are part of a child's prayer still in general use through the northern
counties.

84. *(2)

Rydal Mount, 1834. Our cats having been banished the house, it was soon
frequented by Red-breasts. Two or three of them, when the window was
open, would come in, particularly when Mary was breakfasting alone, and
hop about the table picking up the crumbs. My Sister being then confined
to her room by sickness, as, dear creature, she still is, had one that,
without being caged, took up its abode with her, and at night used to